Where once death and dying were taboos that must never be mentioned, now it seems they are subjects that must always be talked about upfront and brought out into the open. But, say you have a 20-year-old just diagnosed with a terminal illness, who not only doesn't want to talk about it, but isn't even yet in a position to know what is happening to them? They may have been told they can't be cured, but is it really surprising if they can't really take it in?

Jaw jaw isn't necessarily always the best thing. Why is it we seem to have to move so swiftly from one standard response to another? Now after every major disaster, counsellors rush in, although the evidence seems to be that such early input is as likely to be unhelpful as helpful, often keeping people stuck in their difficulties. Yet there seems to be the same pressure to get people to open up about up about their impending death, as though this just has to be a "good thing".

This happened to a friend of mine when we were young. He died aged 21. He said to me, not requiring an answer, "I'm dying, you know." "Is that so," I said and the conversation ended. He sent me a letter with a drawing of himself as a matchstick man sitting up in bed and wrote, "I sometimes wonder if I'll ever get out of here." By chance I subsequently met a young nurse who had been with him when he went in for exploratory surgery. She said, "It is always worse with young people. They want so much to live."

But regardless of their age, many people don't want to talk about dying; they seem focused instead on doing the most with the living they have got left. A palliative care social worker said, "Perhaps the moral here should be whatever works for each of us is what's right."

The Dying Matters coalition is right to highlight the importance of talking about dying, getting death and dying on to the national curriculum and encouraging people to talk about their wishes towards the end of their lives, but that's not the same thing as imposing compulsory conversation.

When people are still in a position of focusing on getting better, what seems to work for them is helping them deal with the present, which may mean sorting out not being able to work, benefits or dealing with the effects of chemotherapy. As the social worker said, "If and when things get worse physically for a person and then they want to talk about it, you have to be ready to support them. It's all about building a relationship to make that possible. That's why helping with the practical things is so important, It's a peg to hang things on for the future."